The Supreme Court has reiterated that even under stringent laws like the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), “bail is the rule and jail is the exception.” The court also expressed serious concerns over an earlier ruling related to bail in the Delhi riots case involving Umar Khalid.
A bench comprising Justices BV Nagarathna and Ujjal Bhuyan observed on Monday that it had “serious reservations” about the decision in the Gulfisha Fatima vs State case. The bench said that the ruling weakened the principles laid down in the landmark KA Najeeb judgment, which remains binding law.
The observations came while the court granted bail to Syed Iftikhar Andrabi, a resident of Kupwara who has been in jail since June 2020 in a narco-terror case.
The bench stressed that the KA Najeeb judgment cannot be diluted by trial courts, High Courts, or even a smaller bench of the Supreme Court. It added that a smaller bench has no authority to weaken or override the ruling of a larger bench, and any disagreement must be referred to a larger bench for consideration.
Referring to NCRB data, the court noted that the conviction rate in UAPA cases remained between 1.5% and 4% from 2019 to 2023. The judges observed that prolonged trials cannot be used as a justification for keeping an accused in jail indefinitely.
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